“Tonight, the sixth night of Chanukah, our seven candles call out like vendors’ chants, like parents’ voices, echoing among the tenementswhere faith burns bright amid a new generation.”(Click to enlarge)

I’m sticking to my original rules today and only featuring one illustration from today’s featured holiday book. Above is one of the fold-out pop-up spreads from Michael J. Rosen’sChanukah Lights (Candlewick, September 2011), illustrated/paper-engineered by Robert Sabuda.

Dedicating an entire three-dimensional spread to each of the eight days of Hanukkah, author and illustrator pay tribute to the Jewish holiday with much grace. Rosen lays out eight scenes showing various celebrations of Jewish freedom—a kibbutz, the first Jewish settlement in the New World, a boat with refugees, a temporary home for those wandering in the desert, and more—and Sabuda’s all-white pop-up scenes, springing forth from brightly-colored backgrounds, are intricate and detailed. Each pop-up structure includes Chanukah lights somewhere in the spread — for observant eyes.

Publishers Weekly describes this one as a “stunning achievement,” while Kirkus calls it a “grand display item, undeniably fragile but capable of surviving—and rewarding—multiple careful readings.”